Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Dodleston Messages

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

It’s not everyday that a message from the 16th century appears on a computer from the 1980s, so when that happened it caught an English couple’s attention and launched a still-unresolved mystery ��- across tiiiiiiime!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and this is short stuff. So let's

talk. The mystery that annoys Chuck. Yeah, it annoys me too. All right, good. I just found myself getting mad when I read this. No, but it's interesting though, at the very least, you got to give it that. Sure. It's creative because Chuck, what we're talking about today has it all. It's got poltergeist activity. It has time travel. It's got early computers from the mid-80s. It's got the UK. It's got it all. It's got fraud. Yeah, it has a lot of stuff in it. And what we're talking about is known as the Dottelsten messages. And it's a, I guess, a fairly well known occult event that took place in Dottelsten, which is, I think in Cheshire, yeah, in England in the mid-80s. I believe it was 1985, 86 over a span of 18 months. And it was so strange that the people

involved wrote a book about it and we're still talking about it today. That's right. There's a gentleman named Ken Webster and his wife, Debbie, who bought an old cottage, a meadow cottage, because they named their cottages over there. Don't you? Sure. And this thing was old. It was 18th century brick cottage and they were fixing it up. And this is just sort of a precursor to the messages, but apparently there was some other weird goings on before the messages. Yeah. And that when they were fixing it up one night, or one day they noticed some six-toed footprints in the dust that walked up the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. Ken, they reckoned it was a prank and they had a guest staying with them, Nick, and they all

kind of decided it was a prank by whom, I don't know. But they decided to paint over all that stuff and the next day they found footprints in the paint as well. Yeah. And then cat food packages or little cans were stacked up in pyramids, real poltergeist stuff. Yeah. Poltergeist the movie by Tobey Hooper. Right. So this, this, that was, yeah, like you said, it was kind of a precursor to the whole thing. And it really took off and got strange when, what was the guy's first name, Webster? Ken. When Ken Webster, who was a teacher at a school, brought home a BBC microcomputer and it had a word processor program on it called Edward, W-O-R-D, pretty cute. And he would write on it, he would use it and every once in a while a weird message would pop up.

And it got even weirder when it turned out that the author of these messages, who Ken Webster, his girlfriend Debbie and their house guest Nick all said, we don't know who's doing this. The author of those messages claimed to be living in the year 1546 and it actually lived in that same cottage or was living in that same cottage in 1546 when he's writing these messages to them in 1985. Which is immediately weird because it was an 18th century cottage. Yeah, there you go. But the one thing we do want to point out that wasn't quite clear to me at first is that this computer was not hooked up to some early kind of modem and some early weird version of the internet in the sticks of England. It was just a computer sitting there alone and ostensibly these messages

would just appear on that word program, right? Yes. And also really important, anytime you turn that computer off, like you couldn't save anything. You could save it on like a floppy disk, but if you turn the computer on it, whatever was on there last wouldn't just be there again. Okay, that's great. I think before we take a break, we should read some of the early posts. The messages began by saying, basically, who are you people? You've stolen my house. The first message ever on the computer said the following, true are the nightmares of a person that fears safe are the bodies of the silent world. Turn pretty flower, turn towards the sun, for you shall grow and sow. But the flowers reaches too high and withers in the burning light.

Get out your bricks, pussycat. Pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. Faith must not be lost, for this shall be your redeemer. Bravo. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty creepy, admittedly, if I were to get a message like that on a computer, not plugged into the internet, it would be creepy. Yeah, it takes a real turn with pussycat, pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. It seems like accusatory, you know? Yeah. So this is, I think that was the first message that Ken Webster got. And he went on to write a book, I think in 89, called The Vertical Plane, that chronicles all this and more. And like you said, we're going to take a short break and we'll come back and talk about this some more because it gets even weirder shortly after.

Okay, I see what you're doing. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get second hand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, cancelled marriages, K-pop? But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so Ken Webster is intrigued and he starts asking questions of this author who signs the early post as LW. And then finally, later on, the L turns out to stand for Lucas with a K. And Lucas is writing in what's called early modern English, which is not really easy to recreate in any kind of fast manner, which is one of the defenses that Ken Webster brought

whenever he's accused of this being a hoax. He's like, first of all, I don't know how to do that. And secondly, I certainly don't know how to do it in any kind of quick manner. And some of these supposedly came back, like answers came back rather quickly when he would ask them a question. Yeah, he said, I doth have no talent forthwith. Here's the second, just this fun reading these. Here's the second message. I ride on behalf of many what strange words you speak. You are a worthy good man who has a fanciful woman and you live in my house who dwell in my home with lights which the devil makes. It was a great crime to have stolen bribed my house. Yeah, so this is the point where Lucas is like, what are you guys doing in my house? And apparently, in fairly short order,

they developed kind of a fondness for one another. So like the accusations and the problems with them living in that cottage get dropped pretty quickly and they start going back and forth. And I just saw it described as a mutual, a deep mutual affection for one another that developed. Yeah, from the other side. Yeah. Just a pen pal from another dimension. But here's the thing. There's some holds in this story. There's some problems with the logic to all this. If you haven't picked up on that by now. A haunted computer? One of the ones that pops up and I didn't catch the 18th century cottage thing and apparently no one else in the world did either except for you, Chuck. So congratulations on that. But one of the things

that Lucas does to kind of set a trap for Ken to see if he actually is from the future like he purported was that Lucas told them that he was educated at Jesus College in Oxford. Jesus or Jesus, one of the two. And that the problem with that is that Jesus College wasn't founded until 1571. And remember, he's writing from 1546. So he is saying like, if you're from the future, you would know that Jesus College wasn't founded yet from the time that I'm writing from. But the problem with that is how would Lucas know that this Jesus College was coming years and years after the time that he is ostensibly writing from. Right. That's a problem. There's a real, another name that came out later. Apparently, Lucas wasn't the real name, but it was Thomas,

either Hardin or Hawardin. And they say that someone that had that name existed in the 1550s nearby. No, not nearby, 150 miles away, which might as well be in another dimension at a time. Okay. Well, that's nearby to me, but sure. Yeah, I guess at the time it was. Yeah, in the 1550s with a donkey pulling you around. Okay, good point. Another cool thing that I think we should mention is that there were times where it appeared that Thomas, aka Lucas, could see what they were doing, because the guy, Ken, had a picture of his car, a jaguar near the computer, and like the Thomas person referenced that picture in the message and said, I found a picture of your

cart, but it is a crude thing for without the horse, it won't go far. So apparently, this thing can see them, which is a pretty key thing. But also, I literally wrote ha-ha next to that because it's so dumb. It is. If you're in 1546 and you see a picture of a jaguar automobile, do you think you'd be like, that's a cart without a horse? I know exactly what that is. Well, I mean, it had wheels and it's square. I mean, I could see that. That was the one that was like, well, there's basically the admission of guilt by Ken Webster right there. This thing gets a little weirder, though, even, right? It does. Take it, Chuck. Well, a third player, a second ghost, and a third player comes into this

when someone named 2109 pops onto the scene. Yeah. And 2109 popped onto the scene inadvertently because Lucas referenced 2109 in a post because when Ken Webster said he's from the year 1985, Lucas says, I thought you were also from 2109, like your friend who brought the box of lights pray. And he didn't say box of lights. He said, Leames Boyce, which is early modern English, four box of lights, which everyone has taken all that to mean that the traveler, the time traveler from 2109, brought Thomas or Lucas a computer. Oh, okay. How would you operate a computer, though, in 1546 is a big question that I have as well. Yeah. The other question I have is, did these messages appear before his eyes or I did see where he would take like a car drive and

come back and that they would be there. Is that how it generally worked? That's what I saw. Yeah. Like he never thought to just round the clock, sit there and watch the computer? I guess not. Or maybe he tried and it didn't work. So that's when he would go for a drive. Who knows? Or maybe he made all this up. So it's possible. So Ken Webster says, well, there's a third party involved and they're from 2109. I'm going to start trying to message them. And in very short order, 2109, who only referred to themselves as they or them, they responded and they said, hey, man, we're not really happy that you stumbled upon our presence. Like we've been basically running an experiment here that you and Lucas and Debbie are all involved in and it's going to change the world.

So just pretend like we don't exist. We're going to go back into the woodwork now and just keep watching and manipulating. Right. Eventually they bring in a paranormal investigation team, the Society for Psychical, Physical, Psychical. Yeah. The SPR, we've talked about them plenty of times. Yeah. Am I saying that right? Psychical. Research. And they brought them to investigate. They came out three times, said we got nothing, no activity at all. Thomas eventually said that he was forced out of the land. So maybe that was a deal. He lived at a place that was there and it wasn't necessarily the same cottage. Okay. But at any rate, he said he was never heard from again. But did say he would leave something for them to discover in the future, right? Yeah. He

said that he would write from his perspective this series of events in a book and would leave it in a place that it could be discovered. So Ken and Debbie and everyone who believes in the Dottlesin messages are waiting for that book to be found to prove this once and for all. Again, it's possible that book doesn't exist. It's possible this was a hoax. There's a really good post on it called, on a site called The Joy of Mirror Words by Tom Ruffles. It's called The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster. I guess it's a book review. And Tom Ruffles, PhD, is very generous by considering that maybe Ken and Debbie were doing this, but weren't aware of it, that maybe they were using telekinesis and weren't aware of it. And that's how these messages

were being generated before he finally settles on. It's likeliest that this was just all a hoax. As far as what Chuck believes, if you couldn't tell 100% fraud, Occam's razor tells me it is fraud. There are no haunted computers. The end. Yeah, which is kind of a bummer because I was anticipating us to at least kind of entertain this for a second, but it's impossible. It's impossible. Well, fun story though. It is a fun story. How about that? So Chuck said it's impossible. I said it's impossible. We've given our final judgments. That means short stuff is out.